The real problem is that ebooks are extremely small, which makes them very easy to pirate in mind-blowingly massive quantities. You can download a 6GB torrent of ebooks in an hour or two, containing tens of thousands of books, enough to read for free until the day you die. Publishers need to open their eyes and realize that if ebooks aren't reasonably priced consumers will just turn to illicit avenues. "My way or the highway" doesn't cut it when your product is trivially easy to steal with negligible consequences.

But of course they won't drop their prices, because they're wed to their dying business model, just like all the other content providers. They'll heavily litigate their former customers, and over time, they'll bleed to death. And that's not a good thing for anybody, because the lack of centralized monetization will mean less books for us to read.